Archive for July 24th, 2008

Mad cow disease, salmonella, tainted meat, E. coli, botulism, listeria… The ways that you can get really sick from food are almost impossible to count. I was reading some of the online news about the US government’s inept handling of the latest food illness debacle. Well over a 1000 folks have come down with salmonella. First it was tomatoes. And everybody scrambled to make tomatoes go away. Then it wasn’t tomatoes. Then it was jalapenos. Some grocery stores pulled them, others did not. I opined out loud that my trust in the food supply is eroding. I griped about the fact that I am funding a government nanny-state bureaucracy that is completely incapable of carrying out there mandate: protecting the food supply. Why do we assume that whatever we buy from the grocery store is safe to eat? And do food marketers capitalize on our belief (hope) that their stuff is safe? And do we think that getting free cantaloupes at the organic market is any safer?

The picture of the prog rock band, Rush, shown above, was taken in 1978. 30 Years have passed and Geddy still has a huge schnozz, but they are all older and not quite as youthful. Recently, the band appeared on The Colbert Report. Most talk shows have diversions in the ready room for guests to futz around with. Colbert decided to have a console set up with the video game Rock Band for the Rush band members to test their skills. Ostensibly, Rush had never played the game. It was set up to expert level and they were invited to take a turn on the iconic classic Tom Sawyer. They did pretty damn good for a first go!